Literature At Home

One of the earliest chess pieces introduced in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass, the White King though not much interactive throughout, however, on some levels, plays the most important role within the story at least as far as the game is concerned. The king’s portrayal as quiet and naive is in fact tantamount to the moderate, juvenile nature of the King of Hearts in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland as reflected in his remark to Mad Hatter while acting as a judge at the Knave of Hearts’ trial “don't be nervous or I'll have you executed on the spot”. Prior to the game, the White King appears to be an animate chess piece of normal size and, for whatever reason, cannot hear or see Alice after she passed through the eponymous looking glass. Alice, not realising this, picks both him and the White Queen off the floor and places them on a table, leading them to believe that some unseen volcano blew them up there. Afterwards, however, she has some m...

  “I don't know what you mean by your way, all the ways about here belong to me…”—  The Red Queen, Through the Looking Glass. An amalgam of the Queen of Hearts, and even sometimes the Duchess from the previous book Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865), the Red Queen is portrayed as a domineering, puritanical, officious and matronly woman in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass . Civil but yet unpleasant, she brings Alice into the chess game as the White Queen’s pawn and is often seen to hound her about her lack of etiquette and general knowledge like a quintessential Victorian governess. Though viewed as an antagonist in the story for her being in the side opposing Alice, their initial encounter besides the flowers is a cordial one, with the Red Queen explaining the rules of Chess concerning promotion to Alice in that she is able to become a queen initially by starting out as a pawn and ultimately reaching the eighth square. Alice finds herself r...

Introduced as one of the queens in Looking-glass World, the White Queen is a fictional character who appears in Lewis Carroll's 1871 fantasy novel Through the Looking-Glass. Prior to the game, the White Queen along with her husband the White King first appears to be an animate chess piece of normal size in the drawing room looking for her daughter Lily just beyond the titular looking-glass and, for whatever reason, cannot hear or see Alice after she passed through the eponymous looking glass. Alice, not realising this, picks both her and the White King off the floor and places them on a table, leading them to believe that some unseen volcano blew them up there. Upon her first arrival, Alice finds the White Queen extremely perplexing and not particularly queen-like. She does not meet her as a human-sized character until the Fifth Square. The White Queen is portrayed as an elderly woman who is very aware of her situations and what is going to happen next. She looks untidy with a comb...

Abstract Travel is a way of self-discovery. It is through travelling, one can escape from the crude and quotidian lifestyle with which he or she does not like to live. When one travels, he or she discovers new cities and countries, new people and their culture, new tastes and smells. But first of all, he or she discovers himself or herself. In this fleeting world, one begins to understand who he or she is and why he or she is, what stereotypes and limitations live in their head. We do not get what we sincerely crave for; we are denied of the fate that we dream; we meet sudden curves which we consciously want to bypass. We are bound by shackles; be it norms, institutions, traditions or societal inhibitions. We may dream of a life in Tahiti, or beside Walden; but we cannot leave behind this concrete jungle for reasons innumerable. Modern human fate is nothing but a conspiracy to entangle us by luring with one after another luxury only to forget our coveted desire. A true adventurer in...

Sons and Lovers is one of a myriad of novels by D. H. Lawrence where he brilliantly examines the antagonism between spirituality or emotional attachment and sexuality or carnal attachment as part of an essential element of his philosophy of life—  ‘the religion of blood’ . As also suggested by Sigmund Freud, a human being’s main task is to keep these two key attributes in harmony. An imbalance of any of these attributes can cause disturbance in the progressive development of a person and/or his or her relationship as is seen firstly in the relationship between Paul and Miriam owing to the latter’s excessive spiritual musings and later on between Paul and Clara— a topsy-turvy. Unable to reciprocate Paul’s overt sexual needs Miriam ends up introducing Paul to her friend Clara in a bid to hopefully fulfill these needs. Clara is a suffragette, who is separated from her husband and temporarily lodged with her mother which results in her engaging in a passionate sexual relationship with ...

“ The idea of nature contains, though unnoticed, an extraordinary amount of human history.” — Raymond Williams  Blake’s poem “The Book of Thel” deals with a psychological issue of purposelessness which is metaphorically projected as a journey from Innocence towards Experience. Blake’s own engraving portrays a young Girl standing under a drooping tree. In front of her blossoms a plant of a young couple. The young girl Thel in her ‘unfallen’ or innocent state, resides in the pristine valley of Har. Thel is an angel who is the youngest daughter of Seraphim. Kathleen Raine views Thel as a fairy because fairies are spirits of vegetation and in the engraving she stands amidst flora. Other interpretations suggest that the word Thel, having its Greek root can imply ‘will’ or ‘desire’ and the poem presents her desire for wisdom. Thel asks questions about her importance and the impermanence of beauty in the world and complains “no one hears my voice” but the lily and the cloud responds and...

By the titular ‘cycle’ Preetinicha Barman in her poem “Cycle” metaphorically refers to the menstrual cycle signifying fertility, birth, flow of life etc which every girl has to undergo enduring all the pain and bane in order to become a ‘woman’. The image of the beads of sweat in the speaker’s body is quintessential of a woman’s menstrual blood— “Pungent, slimy, the quasi-liquid drips” — which flows from the uterus through cervix and out of the body through vagina which is symbolized by the ‘naked hill’, thus implying the spatio-temporal action the backdrop of the poem is supposed to have set against. The use of the adjective ‘naked’ is compatible enough with the vagina in that it sheds or empties all the menstrual blood— which is partly blood and partly tissue from the inside of the uterus symbolized by the ‘red soil’— from it during menstruation. The speaker seems to have been worn out after her ritualistic participation in the monthly period. The burden, pain, sufferings infli...